The Shaza(a)m Problem: Mandela Effect Strikes Again

There’s always something new and exciting going on in the wonderful world of the Mandela Effect.

This time, we have an “anomaly” involving the comedian Sinbad and an early 90s movie called Shazam or Shazaam (I’ll refer to it as Shazaam from here on out), in which he played a magical wish-granting genie. The problem? That movie doesn’t exist on this particular worldline.

Just ask Sinbad himself:

Okay for all you people who think I did a genie movie.. well haven’t done one YET , but I am going to do one so we can close this chapter

What I was actually thinking of turned out to be 1996’s Kazaam, starring Shaquille O’Neal. And how could I forget? In that bizarre film, Shaq played the titular rapping genie Kazaam who lived in a magical boombox. Not great by any means, but I do remember it.

What, then, is this mysterious Shazaam, a film that so many people claim to remember yet can no longer find?

A Synopsis from Another World

To begin with, let’s make one thing clear: Most people who claim to remember Shazaam also remember Kazaam, and see them as two completely separate movies. Many remember Shazaam releasing a few years earlier.

Another Redditor, by the name of SoaringMoon, later shared a similar memory of the film, more or less corroborating EpicJourneyMan’s. If you read them both, you’ll notice the similarities.

Suffice it to say, the film they remember involves two young siblings, a boy and a girl, who stumble upon a genie’s lamp. Chaos ensues. Family hijinks abound.

A happy ending, as always.

The most interesting part of EpicJourneyMan’s analysis, however, is his complete memory of managing a video rental store at the time. He remembers not only seeing the film, but also ordering two copies for the store (“at half the price,” he wrote, presumably given its lack of popularity). He even remembers the film’s VHS cover.

Even more curious, he mentions that on many occasions, people would return the film to the video store, claiming there was something wrong with the VHS tape. He took this to mean they didn’t like it and “just wanted a free rental.” After reviewing the film, he’d find it working perfectly every time.

Perhaps he was right, and the movie was just that bad. Or perhaps its malfunction was actually caused by the early effects of a distortion in our worldline, the beginning signs that a universal erasure was taking place, like Marty McFly fading from existence.

With such specific memories, all of this raises the question: How is it possible that some people vividly remember this movie existing, and yet others do not?

Shazam vs. Kazaam vs. All That and Shazzan

Whatever the answer — the multiverse or false memories or any other number of possibilities — it’s a fascinating situation.

There are, however, a few points to consider.

For example, many might remember Sinbad as a genie due to his colorful attire, those Sergio Tacchini sweatsuits (Not windbreakers, as he’ll tell you). It’s not hard to imagine him as a genie of some kind.

There also exists a still image from when Sinbad hosted a Sinbad the Sailor marathon on TNT back in 1994, in which he can be seen wearing an adventurous getup, turban included. Once again, he’s on the case:

And finally, as I’ve seen mentioned several times, in the late 1960s there was a Hannah-Barbera cartoon called Shazzan, about a magical genie who helps two teenage siblings during their adventures.

Alternate Possibilities

So what’s happening here, if not a true Mandela Effect? Are all of these separate things meshing together in people’s minds, forming a memory of a film that never truly existed?

Could this be a form of mass hysteria, as some claim? Or perhaps something akin to psychological priming, in which people are led to remember the film existing by others before they have a chance to remember it on their own?

Is it possible that Shazaam, as a movie, was so terrible, so universally disliked, that the studio successfully pulled a George Lucas and destroyed every copy with hammers, effectively erasing it from this universe?

As I said, there are a number of possibilities.

Then again, many people claim to have taken these other elements into account – Kazaam, the TNT marathon, Sinbad’s appearance on All That – and remain adamant that their memories are real, that a movie called Shazaam did, at one time, exist. It’s the universe that has changed around them. The timeline has shifted.

4 Replies to “The Shaza(a)m Problem: Mandela Effect Strikes Again”

This effect is getting a little bit of press but you never discuss any interesting effects such as Eisenhower disappearing from the dime. The fact that human anatomy has radically changed for example we now have bones behind our eyes. The human skull is hollow NO CREEPY EYE BONES. Our rib cages now look like the were drawn by HR.Geiger. Our internal organs are in the wrong places. The Earth orbits a different star a white one as opposed to a yellow one. And best of all we are in the wrong part of the galaxy the Earth is located on an outer spiral arm we now are located not only on the other side of the galaxy but in a middle band.

Here’s a video showing rapper, rapping about Eisenhower being on the dime. If there is one thing rappers are expert in it’s money:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7DuZJ2yqs4

I’m going to try to assume the best about all this but this has been very, very, very weird. Maybe there has always been another Earth on the other side of the galaxy and I’m there for some reason. Or maybe another dimension where Earth formed around a different sun somewhere else.

On a positive note AC/DC’s Thunderstruck sounds much, much better here. You have President Trump so no pointless nuclear war with Russia that’s a plus. Some people say we’ve been taken here because nuclear war was about to happen. I guarantee Trump didn’t win on my Earth, no BREXIT either. Nothing good or magical ever happened on my Earth. It was probably Hillary vs Jeb arguing about who would be tougher on Russia. Bet Jeb won Hillary is unelectable on any Earth. I think i’ve been here for at least two years.